Hello there!

Sweet corn on the cob! 
Last blog update was November 18. Of last year. A lot has happened in the last 6 months! You may be asking yourself, why has she not been writing on the blog, sharing pictures, and being silly? In answer, all my writing energy had to be funneled elsewhere....

March 16th I defended my dissertation!

#PhD2017 is no longer  a hashtag of hope and motivation. It is a reality folks. 

Two years of research and writing and analysis boiled down to a 30-minute presentation. It was intense and dare I say...fun. I said it. Fun. No one cares about your research the way your committee does, aside from you that is :-) 

So it was nice to talk and discuss and question my little area of interest. It was euphoric when my chair told me Congratulations. Because there was still a small seed of doubt, sprouting roots of what-if? Thank goodness we squashed that plant and moved forward! 

The edits have been done. The paperwork has been filed. The fees have been paid. 

Now I get to finish out my last class and really enjoy it. Our college hasn't offered mixed methods in years. I am learning so much in this last class and the workload is manageable and interesting.  

Cassidy is learning the piano. Her teacher Marilee is patient and fun. Cassidy is on the 4th Harry Potter book and itching to watch the movie. It's too much.  She has seen the first two, but I think the 3rd movie takes such a dramatic leap....she's going to have to be happy with the book till next year. We're starting to plan a small birthday party for her and her classmates because her birthday is on a Saturday this year. She told me she wanted something healthy. I suggested a yoga theme and she jumped all over it.  Yay for something easy and at home! Double yay for our dear friend Rori who is a yoga teacher and happy to come to our house and teach a class with fun stuff. Fingers crossed the weather holds...Cass has also expressed an interest in chores. She already cleans her room and helps with Biscuit, but she wants to wash dishes and sweep and rake leaves. Now the question is how far do we let that go, and how do we nurture that so it doesn't go away in a few years? ;-)  

Savannah loves helping me in the kitchen. She loves to crack eggs and stir things. Or press the buttons on everything- the toaster, the mixer, the blender. Her birthday misses the school cut-off by 5 days. There is no one I can beg or bribe to allow her to start kindergarten. We looked at all the options; private school, enroll in Truckee, CA or South Lake Tahoe, etc. People have caught on to the loopholes and neatly stitched them up. It's not a bad thing for her to start later. She will love being the oldest kid and leading the others. And we are grateful to the staff at TMCC who will continue to pusher and challenger her, so she won't miss out on learning new stuff, nor will she be bored and destructive. Sure would be nice to stop paying daycare and have one drop off eventually, but continuing my selfish theme, that would be selfish ;-)

We are about to start the girls in swim lessons again because summer is coming. The Truckee river is ridiculous right now thanks to an epic winter season. Sadly, this means no swimming or wading downtown. On the bright side, there are lots of other pool and water options in town. Day trips to Lake Tahoe and Donner are definitely in the summer plans!

Matt did a sprint triathlon over spring break! Bike, Swim, Run. We went to Granite Bay to cheer him on! It was a real test of how far his foot injury has come in the healing process. Speaking of which, he sold Purple Rain! Yes, he named his motorcycle, and yes it sold fast. It was snowing outside when the new owner came to collect it. Do you think that stopped the new owner from riding off into the snowstorm? Nope. The new owner was celebrating his birthday and all too happy to take Purple Rain off our hands. I remained quite calm and supportive during his announcement, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I was jumping for joy and screaming hallelujah on the inside! 

Matt also was accepted into a student affairs law certificate program! I am so proud of him. He has thought about law school off and on for a couple of years and this one-week program gives him exactly what he was looking for. It's at a beautiful resort in Florida, not that he'll get to see the resort, as the classes are all day and then there is studying all night. No sightseeing. At the end of this intense program, his head will be full of knowledge about law and higher education. So it is pretty neat. 

I am still in disbelief that I am not waking up at 4:30am to write and write and write. This sleeping in till 6am is a whole new world...cue saccharine music from Aladdin and may it not be stuck in your head for the next several hours ;-) Just a few minutes to emphasize my euphoria over being done.  I end with a plea, that if the question of "What next?" bubbles into your mind, you pop that bubble. Put the bubble wand down. Let's just be at peace in this moment and save the questions of what the heck happens next for another time. The only thing happening next is a nap, followed up closely by some playtime in the backyard with the kids and dog.

Cheers!